leetcode: Combination Sum

Given a set of candidate numbers (C) and a target number (T), find all unique combinations in C where the candidate numbers sums to T.

The same repeated number may be chosen from C unlimited number of times.

Note:

• All numbers (including target) will be positive integers.
• Elements in a combination (a1, a2, … , ak) must be in non-descending order. (ie, a1 ≤ a2 ≤ … ≤ ak).
• The solution set must not contain duplicate combinations.

For example, given candidate set 2,3,6,7 and target 7, 
A solution set is: 
[7] 

[2, 2, 3] 

思路：

递归的性能很大程度上取决于是否将减枝做好。一开始我唯一的减枝判断在：假设a为其中一个元素，那么只会对该元素重复取target / a次。提交后，发现性能很差，平均执行时间为90ms。 于是，继续减枝.假设当前取a一共c次，其中c <= target / a. 如果 target - c * a < a，那么此时不必再考虑a之后的元素了，因为a之后的元素大于等于a。实现后，平均执行时间为34ms。

代码如下：

</pre><p><pre name="code" class="cpp">class Solution {
   void combinationSumAux(vector<int>& candidates, int start, vector<int> currv, int left, vector<vector<int> >& ret)
   {
       if(left == 0 && !currv.empty())
       {
           ret.push_back(currv);
           return;
       }
       if(left > 0)
       {
            for(int i = start; i < candidates.size(); i++)
            {
                int maxc = left / candidates[i];
                vector<int> t = currv;
                for(int j = 0; j < maxc; j++)
                {
                    t.push_back(candidates[i]);
                    int newLeft = left - (j + 1) * candidates[i];
                    if(newLeft < candidates[i])
                    {
                        if(newLeft == 0)
                            ret.push_back(t);
                        break;
                    }
                    combinationSumAux(candidates, i + 1, t, newLeft, ret);
                }
            }
       }
   }
    
public:
    vector<vector<int> > combinationSum(vector<int> &candidates, int target) {
        sort(candidates.begin(), candidates.end());
        vector<int> currv;
        vector<vector<int> > ret;
        combinationSumAux(candidates, 0, currv, target, ret);
        return ret;
    }
};

改进：

参数  vector<int> currv  是通过复制传递，是低效的。于是寻找能够通过引用来传递这个参数的方法。通过改进后，平均执行时间降为28ms;(依然不理想)

代码：

class Solution {
   void combinationSumAux(vector<int>& candidates, int start, vector<int>& currv, int left, vector<vector<int> >& ret)
   {
       if(left == 0 && !currv.empty())
       {
           ret.push_back(currv);
           return;
       }
       if(left > 0)
       {
            for(int i = start; i < candidates.size(); i++)
            {
                currv.push_back(candidates[i]);
                int newLeft = left - candidates[i];
                if(newLeft >= 0)
                    combinationSumAux(candidates, i, currv, newLeft, ret);
                currv.pop_back();
            }
       }
   }
    
public:
    vector<vector<int> > combinationSum(vector<int> &candidates, int target) {
        sort(candidates.begin(), candidates.end());
        vector<int> currv;
        vector<vector<int> > ret;
        combinationSumAux(candidates, 0, currv, target, ret);
        return ret;
    }
};